


Together. Always.

by emquin



Series: Endgame fics [1]
Category: Avengers: Endgame - Fandom, Endgame - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), avengers endgame - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers Endgame Spoilers, F/M, Fix-It-Fic, Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Spoilers, Steve centric, Stony - Freeform, Stony endgame, Time Travel, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 16:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18641998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emquin/pseuds/emquin
Summary: In which Steve reflects on his relationship with Tony...and then he does something about it. Endgame spoilers. Stony.





	Together. Always.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this on a whim after seeing Endgame (which wrecked me). One of the things that really shines in this movie is Steve and Tony in relation to each other. And so this fic happened. Enjoy.

Twenty one days. Steve wasn’t even actively counting, but it was information filed in the back of his head. Twenty one days since it happened. Since half the universe was turned to dust -- disappearing where they stood no matter who they were. It was -- there were no words. When he looked at the others -- the ones that were left he saw it in their eyes too. It was grief and blame and none of them knew what came next and it was defeat in a way that Steve had never experienced and yet somehow in his worst moments, Steve’s thoughts fell to Tony.

 

It always went back to Tony.

 

Tony Stark. Earth’s best defender. Iron Man. And he was gone too…

 

Then, he wasn’t.

 

Tony was thin. He was gaunt and frail and his eyes held the same despair and defeat. There was anger and pain there too and seeing him had felt amazing and wonderful because he was alive. Tony was alive!

 

He ran, past everyone as the ship opened and he was there and Tony was within reach and the moment lasted seconds as Pepper approached and the moment was lost -- lost like everything else between them and he was to blame for all of it. But Tony was there within reach. He was alive. Tony lived.

 

It was more than enough for that to be true except that in the time that had passed since Steve saw Tony last, none of his feelings had faded. He doubted they ever would.

 

Loving Tony was forever -- it was innate and a part of him paired up with regrets and lost time.

  
Pepper’s arms were around Tony and Steve watched them and the desperation in which she clung to him, how Tony’s face was pressed into her shoulder and how it wasn’t him. Their eyes met and Tony was the one to look away. They weren’t okay. Steve didn’t know if they could be or ever would be.

 

The day had been bright and warm and if Steve remembered correctly -- and he usually did -- they had been somewhere in Spain. Their hotel had been particularly bad and Steve’s hair had gotten too long and his beard too unruly. He’d been getting food -- trying his best with his broken Spanish -- and the tv was on at the restaurant. It was Tony’s name that made him pause like it always did when there were news from home.

 

It was in Spanish and Steve didn’t really understand it all that well but Pepper was standing with Tony and they both looked good. They were smiling and laughing and Tony’s arm wrapped around Pepper’s waist. They kissed. There was a ring on her finger. His stomach churned. His whole body was numb. Cold. Tight.

 

 _Tony Stark y Pepper Potts se van a casar_ read the headline.

 

“Getting married,” Steve whispered. Tony looked happy. Unbroken. Someone else had put him back together.

 

Hell, all Steve seemed to do was break him apart.

 

If later that day, Steve hid away from the others and tried to find some sort of work for them, neither Sam or Natasha commented on it. Later, when it was closer to morning than night, Natasha grasped his hand.

 

Bruce put an IV line in despite Tony’s arguments against it. He was in a wheelchair too, too weak to go far on his own. His cheeks were so hollow and his eyes sunken and Steve hated to see him so broken. Knew he was partly to blame for putting him there and then the fight returned. Tony shouted every bit of it -- words he’d been holding back or waiting to say for longer than seemed possible.  

 

“I needed you. As in past tense,” Tony said.

 

He wasn’t there.  

 

It was too late, as Tony put it.

 

“I said we’d lose,” Tony said and he kept talking and talking like he always did, and his anger and pain was so plain and clear. Then his hand was reaching for his chest and the device, pushing back at Steve’s questions and demands.

 

“I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar.” And he dropped the broken reactor on his hand.

 

It cut deep.

 

Tony hated him.

 

It was deserved. He wasn’t there for Tony when it counted. He lied to him. Broke the whole team apart.

 

Steve could remember clearly when he’d said that win or lose, they would do it together. He’d expected them to be together. But, when it mattered most...he wasn’t there, making the wrong choice time and time again...

 

After Bruce sedated Tony, Pepper remained at his side. She watched them all warily until she could take Tony home and away from all of them. Away from him. Steve didn’t blame her.

 

The thing about Pepper was that she was so absolutely strong. Throughout all of it, she had remained steadfast even as she mourned like they all were doing.

 

“I needed you.” _You weren’t there._ He let Tony down when it mattered. Destroyed everything they built when all along Tony had been right about everything. Even The Accords probably — well, the part about keeping the team together being more important than losing some freedoms.

 

Then, Thanos was gone. There were no stones. Their new reality was here to stay and it felt like failing all over again.

 

Five years passed at a pace. Slow and lingering like a toothache with absolutely no relief.

 

The number of times that Steve actually got to see Tony in person could be counted on one hand but Natasha made peace with Tony and she kept up with him just like she kept up with everyone else. It was easy to let everything go and let her deal with it while he went to support meetings like Sam would have. He helped where he could and tried to make sense of the world that was missing half of all life.

 

It was Natasha that told him about Morgan and showed him pictures when she was born. A tiny little bundle with a tuft of dark hair who resembled neither her mother or father quite yet and whose very existence made Steve’s chest ache. But Tony was happy. Tony was moving on and living. His money still funded The Avengers but Tony stayed away and maybe it was easier that way because Steve kept encouraging people to move on even if he never would or could.

 

He never asked Natasha about Tony or Pepper or Morgan. She always just told him. Steve was aware that she went over for dinner once a month -- that she filled Tony in on everything even when the news was just about Carol Danvers saying hello from somewhere in outer space.

 

He saw Tony again properly after Scott showed up with a crazy story about time travel and a way to resolve everything. Tony looked good. Happy.

 

They were always fighting was the thing. Well, not always. Just a lot of the time. One or both of them too stubborn to back down from a fight wanting to be right or to prove the other wrong for reasons that never mattered past the moment. Countless times when Steve had wanted to just kiss him quiet and have that resolve everything. But if there was one area in which he was a coward it was that one. Fear of rejection or not being rejected -- it was all the same.

 

Morgan ran out to “rescue” her dad and Steve could see Tony’s reluctance to help in the way he held her and the way he invited them to stay for lunch and Steve couldn’t push it and beg him to help because the last thing he wanted was to hurt Tony again and to take away his happiness and the life he’d built. Tony had a family. He was happy.

 

They called him the man out of time. Maybe he was just the man with bad timing.

 

They kissed once.

 

Tony liked to celebrate after big things happened. Once the new Avengers Compound was built, it had felt right to throw a small party.

 

“We did it,” Tony said.

 

“Together,” Steve said and grinned at him.

 

Tony grinned back. There was a drink in his hand, but it was non-alcoholic, and he waved it around. Steve grabbed his forearm before he could spill it and Tony leaned into his side, looking up at him, through long dark lashes that seemed impossible.

 

“What comes next, Cap?”

 

All of it was behind them. Sokovia. Ultron. All of it resolved even if it came with its own loses.

 

“Train up the new team, I guess. Make this work even if you’re not a part of it anymore.”

 

“I -- I’m sorry. You know all I want is -- this is not the end and--”

 

The light shone in Tony eyes and there was a nervous energy about him. He looked beautiful and enchanting.

 

“--I’m haunted by what I saw and it’s time I step back. For the better. I just -- I’m sorry and I--”

 

Steve kissed him, a quick brush of the lips that made his entire body go cold with panic. Time slowed down as he pulled back until a hand was on the side of his face pulling him back in. Tony surged forward, wasting not a second before fusing their lips together, stepping into his space. Steve gasped into it, pressing back, his arm snaking around Tony’s back as Tony’s fingernails scrapped the nape of his neck.

 

The whole memory of it was seared into his skin, even if another kiss never managed to happen again. Not later that night. Not the next day. Certainly not when The Accords came into play about a year later or any of the time in between where seeing Tony felt like a luxury.

 

On his loneliest nights, Steve closed his eyes and dreamed about it. He tried to remember if Tony tasted like the cherries he’d had floating in his drink or if his goatee had scratched against his bare skin. He tried not to forget the musk of Tony’s cologne or the callused fingertips that touched his skin.

 

Kissing Tony felt like a dream -- an imagined happening that wouldn’t be brought up again.

 

Even knowing the kind of person Tony was, Steve didn’t expect to see him again, especially not with the solution and with Steve’s shield. He appeared like the knight in shining armor -- and technically he was exactly that -- always steps ahead of the rest of them. Always the one piece needed in the giant puzzle that was their team. Without him they were all lost.

 

Steve didn’t know if he gave himself away in how he watched and looked on at Tony as everything started to be put into place. How his eyes lingered and watched him and wished desperately that things were different.

 

It was days upon days of work. Gathering the team. Putting the time machine together. Figuring out when and where to go. All of it felt like old times except that they all felt their loses again and again.

 

One late night found him and Tony together. Alone.

 

“This is worth it, right? All of this?”

 

Steve could tell that Tony was running on very little sleep, and his fingers rubbed at his temples as if trying to stave off a headache.

 

“If we can bring everyone back. Yes. Of course.”

 

“I’ve been--” Tony coughed. “--I didn’t solve this in one night. I was already working on it. Time travel. It seemed -- well, it was the only way that…”

 

“Oh.”

 

Tony stared at the ground. “I was lucky. Not everyone was...and Peter--”

 

Peter Parker. Steve hadn’t even met him, not properly. Maybe once it was all over he might get to. If they managed to fix, that is.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Tony looked directly at him, his brown eyes so expressive and shining. “Me too.”

 

“I -- Tony, you must know and I’m sorry to--”

 

Tony’s hand landed on his forearm, still keeping eye contact. “I know. I know. You don’t have to--”

 

Later, once it was all ready and once they knew where they were going and what their teams broke down into, and he and Tony were standing in an alley and Tony’s eyes were on him, Steve would follow him anywhere. He trusted Tony. Of course he trusted Tony.

 

Peggy was beautiful. Steve had thought that the first time he saw her. He was never not going to love her and having her just within his reach made him reluctant to follow the rules. He was in the past and she was right there, feet away from him just within reach and it took everything to not approach her. His picture -- one from before the serum sat on her desk. In the future she had lived a full life. Had a husband and kids. She died in her bed, old and wrinkled and so so completely fulfilled. Without regrets.

 

Steve got out of her office and walked out, pym particles hidden in the pocket of a stolen uniform only to find Tony busy talking to Howard Stark of all people. But he had the stone.

 

“I saw Peggy,” he admitted.

 

“I saw my dad,” Tony said, dazed.

 

Steve hugged him, pulled him in tight. Their whole lives were intertwined from start to finish, it seemed. They were meant to know each other -- meant to be in each other’s lives.

 

“We have to--”

 

“I know.”

 

“You want to stay, don’t you?” Tony asked. It was a whisper.

 

Looking at Tony and having Tony just there within his reach made him hesitate. His answer was lodged in his throat and Tony’s stare was knowing.

 

“I--”

 

“We all deserve to be happy in the end,” Tony said. “That’s the whole point -- getting to go home at the end.”

 

“Tony, I--”

 

He didn’t want to stay. He couldn’t stay.

 

“It would be okay if--”

 

“No.”

 

“But you and Peggy--”

 

Steve shook his head, but he didn’t have the words to explain. He thought that Tony understood as he reached for his wrist.

 

They got away. Went back.

 

Nat was gone.

 

Forever.

 

The world was cruel.

 

Steve looked at Tony and Tony was looking back. Her sacrifice was going to be worth it.

 

There was some time in between where none of them could afford to linger on their loss again.

 

“We’re doing this,” Tony said.

 

“Yeah. Together.”

 

Tony gave him a long look. Then, he nodded. “Always.”

 

Hulk snapped his fingers.

 

It took mere moments before the world was in chaos again. He woke up to Tony. Destruction surrounded them and Thanos was back and Tony was right yet again. The side effects of time travel clear as day.

 

The whole of it was a blur. Fighting Thanos again, the appearance of Thanos’ army, and then in the moment when they needed them the most everyone back and ready to turn the tide of the battle.

 

It was hard to keep track of everyone and everything without losing the focus that might keep them alive. The gauntlet with the stones was passing from hand to hand, his shield was broken, and then Thanos had the stones and it was Wakanda all over--

 

Until one moment Tony was going for the gauntlet on Thanos’ hand unsuccessfully and the next Thanos snapped his fingers and…

 

Nothing.

 

It took seconds to realize what was happening. Longer for Steve to make it to where Tony was as Tony’s entire arm glowed with the colors of the stones and burned. Their eyes met. Tony’s brown and wet with unshed tears and a deep understanding that that was it. The end. His end.

 

“I--”

 

Snap. A flash of white. The world changed again.

 

Everything happened fast. Tony’s whole arm to his neck was charred along with his suit. Peter was there. Then Pepper. Over her head their eyes met and slowly, so slowly that Steve didn’t know how long the moment lasted life left them entirely.

 

Tony Stark saved the world at the cost of his own life, always the one to take the sacrifice play. Steve couldn’t believe he’d ever doubted him.

 

The next few days were hard. Pepper planned the funeral with Happy. Steve offered to help however he could and it all felt like someone else inside his body was doing it while he looked on. He broke when Tony’s message was played -- his last words to all of them because Tony was nothing if not prepared.

 

Pepper approached him when everyone was starting to leave. Her eyes were rimmed red and she looked reluctant when she stepped towards him.

 

“Steve, I -- there’s something he left for you.”

 

“For me?” Steve asked.

 

Pepper nodded. “When you came back from the past, he recorded a few other messages. One was for you.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“I haven’t -- I didn’t watch it so…”

 

It took him a few days to watch.

 

Tony was sat on the table back at the compound.

 

“Hey, Steve. I guess if you’re getting this then I’m -- I’m gone.” He paused there, his lips pursing and then letting out a sigh. “And I wanted to clear the air. Not that it hasn’t already been cleared. Maybe I just wanted to have the last word. And if I’m gone, I just want to be sure that you do more than sit around this place letting life pass you by.”

 

Tony looked out, almost directly at Steve where he was standing.

 

“You can’t do that, Steve. So, I want you to promise me something. I want you to embrace life and stop mourning what you’ve lost. Especially if one of those things is me. You don’t always have to be the hero. You don’t always have to be the man with the plan. Everything has an end but there’s a whole lot of middle too. Don’t waste your middle. Love you, Cap. Always.”

 

Tony smiled, then, his lips quirked up and then the recording shut off and Tony was gone. Again.

 

Steve’s eyes fell closed and he could still see him with his hair done perfectly on his head and his easy manner of being, his swagger or confidence -- everything that made him Tony Stark. In the recording it wasn’t easy to tell that Tony had brown eyes or that his dark hair had more grey in it than ever.

 

He opened his eyes again, expecting to see nothing. He gasped when he saw Tony. The grey recorded Tony...but not the same Tony because this one was dressed differently. He was addressing the camera head on, barely moving except for when his hands twitched and he wrung them together.

 

“As a child, the idea of time travel seemed entirely idealistic,” hologram Tony said. “Like a fairytale full of impossibilities. Most scientists would tell you it’s impossible and yet more impossible things have happened. I saw my dad, Steve. Howard Stark in all his glory.”

 

There was a long pause that dragged. Tony tapped a finger to his chin and he sighed, dropping his hands to his sides. “And I didn’t know it’d hit me that hard to realize how human he was. Anyway, the point is -- the point is that if I’m not there I hope you get to do what you wanted to do when we were in the past.”

 

Steve didn’t get it at first. Not until he realized that Tony must have recorded it when they came back from 1970.

 

“I hope -- I hope you go back and see her. Stay with her. You deserve that -- to have the love of your life and get to experience life in that way.” He chuckled. “I hope -- well, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to say this to you in person.”

 

Tony wrung his hands together again. “I know you’re probably thinking about all the things Bruce and I said -- the rules. But, don’t you worry about screwing anything up. Just know that after everything, you deserve this. You deserve that kind of happy.” He smiled and it was sad and mournful. “Always.”

 

Tony was wrong. He was so wrong.

 

Tony stayed there for a moment longer, lingering like a ghost. He seemed to be trying to figure out if he should say something else. Then, he shook his head and the recording ended.

 

Steve didn’t know how long he cried, or how long after his tears dried up he just sat there unmoving and unsure of everything but with a new determination because Tony was right. Why was he always right?

 

Steve could time travel. It was a real and proper option.

 

Days later, they were ready to take the stones back and Steve jumped at the chance, volunteering at once before anyone else could even consider it. He could tell that Bucky knew what his real intentions by volunteering were. Or maybe he didn’t -- maybe he hadn’t guessed all of it. The others didn’t have a clue. Sam was almost harder to look at as he moved onto the platform, Mjolnir in hand.

 

The truth of the matter was that despite everything, Tony’s entire purpose had been to get to live his life. He’d just wanted to be able to do that while living in a safe world without the threats of a purple alien to contest to. The threat was gone and so was Tony because the universe itself seemed to like the idea of that sort of poetic irony. The kind that was unfair and tragic.

 

Putting the stones and Mjolnir back was easier than it had been to take them but only mildly so. He managed to do all of it undetected and without seeing much of anyone else. Then, he went to find Peggy.

 

He went to her house. She didn’t believe it was him at first, poking her finger into his chest hard before she cried and threw herself at him and he caught her and held her and it was all just so so easy and hard all at once. Peggy was in his arms -- this was everything he’d longed for and wanted for too long.

 

“How, Steve? How? You...you...you died--”

 

Peggy’s face was screwed up, her eyes flooded with tears and she looked beautiful. His beautiful fierce and stubborn girl. And he loved her. He did.

 

“I was frozen,” Steve said.

 

She gasped. “Howard was right.”

 

“Yeah. He’s a Stark, isn’t he? They’re somehow right a lot.” Well, no, one particular Stark was right a lot.

 

Peggy eyed him, always shrewd and always knowing. “You’re not just talking about Howard.”

 

He shook his head. It was hard, especially when she took a step back and really took him in. Her tears were all but dried up. Her scrutiny was everything.

 

“You don’t look the same. You’re different.”

 

“I--”

 

“Tell me.”

 

He told her everything. About waking up in the future and about Bucky and about The Avengers and how she lived a full life. Eventually, he told her about Tony.

 

“The best person I’ve ever met -- the hero none of us deserved. You’re going to be his godmother. I made so many mistakes when it came to him and judged him when I didn’t even know him. Fought him every step of the way like someone that didn’t understand we were always meant to be on the same side. Everything that happened -- us fixing everything and saving the world and the universe at large is down to him. Always.”

 

“You love him,” Peggy said. Her hand touched his cheek, wiping a tear away.

 

Steve closed his eyes. He gave a short nod and opened them again.

 

There wasn’t pity or sadness in her eyes. Instead, there was understanding. Love. Maybe some pride too.

 

“You aren’t here to stay, are you?” Her voice had an edge of sadness to it.

 

Steve shook his head. “No. I -- I can’t. I just wanted to see you. One last time. Maybe -- maybe we can get that dance.”

 

Peggy laughed, but she nodded and together they cleared out some space in her living room. She put on music. He wasn’t that guy anymore that didn’t have a clue about how to dance. Not that he’d done a lot of dancing in the future at all.

 

Swaying to the music with Peggy felt like closure. An end.

 

When it was over, she stared at him long and hard. “This is goodbye then? A proper one, this time.”

 

Walking away from Peggy wasn’t easy, not when he loved her still. Always would. Peggy Carter would never fade from his memory.

 

But there was somewhere else he needed to be. Somewhere else that he wanted to be.

 

_You deserve that -- to have the love of your life and get to experience life in that way. You deserve that kind of happy._

 

The Tony Stark of 2012 was different. Younger and more carefree -- unburdened by everything Steve had done or not done. He had yet to be broken by the carelessness and thoughtlessness of a man out of time.

 

Watching him while Tony had no clue he was there felt invasive and yet rushing in was worse when seeing Tony brought everything back.

 

His Tony was dead. Future Tony was dead. Future Tony sacrificed himself to save everyone else including his wife and daughter and this man just in front of him within easy reach was not that Tony at all. And yet he was. He was because this younger Tony had just flown a nuke into space -- Tony had always been more than any of them deserved.

 

Tony seemed surprised but happy to see him when his knuckles rapped on the glass door before he stepped into the workshop.

 

“I thought you went on a road trip? Or was Romanoff lying to me again? She tends to do that. Not that I’m not glad to see you. Just surprised, is all? Did you need something? Did something happen?”

 

He was Tony. Words coming out so fast that the Steve from this time hadn’t been able to keep up, hadn’t found it endearing and wonderful and like a soothing balm on his aching soul.

 

“No. No. I -- is that offer is still good?”

 

Steve didn’t even know why he was doing that -- why he was bothering to ask when if he faced reality, he actually couldn’t stay. There was another Steve driving around on a motorcycle halfway through the United States that would return eventually and take up his place and--

 

“What, your very own floor on a building with a giant A on the outside?”

 

Steve nodded. He was nervous. Tony was stood just before him complete with AC/DC t-shirt, dark hair, perfect goatee, and brown lively eyes. His arc reactor shone in his chest not yet removed and so absolutely blue -- a light at the end of a very long tunnel.

 

“Yeah, that.”

 

“Sure. Always good.” Tony looked confused, a little thrown off. He eyed Steve, but this Tony didn’t know him. Not really. He wouldn’t notice the differences.

 

“Good. I -- I figure I’ll take you up on it.”

 

It was easy. Too easy. Tony smiled and it was the genuine one that was all Tony and not Tony Stark or Iron Man. Just Tony. To think that things could have been as easy as this if he had only been less judgemental and less focused on the past rather than the present he was actually in.

 

He hung around the lab, looking at Tony’s newest suit. It didn’t compare to any of the future ones and yet Steve loved it. He loved the red and gold and how real and grounded it looked. Iron Man. Earth’s best defender. Saver of the Universe. The man he loved.

 

Steve had only to look at a calendar to know where the Steve from this time was -- the one that would slowly tear the man in front of him apart without knowing it and because of his own pain and his own loneliness because he hadn’t known or seen the branch of friendship offered complete without surprise clauses or questions or caveats.

 

Days passed and Steve became a fixture.

 

Tony wasn’t as busy as he pretended to be. Or, he didn’t mind making time for Steve. It hurt to know that this -- the friendship and the acceptance -- had all been there waiting for him if he had only bothered to ask.

 

Some days, they went out for strolls to hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Some of them so tiny and so well hidden that it was a surprise to know Tony knew about them. One day, Tony surprised him with tickets to a baseball game. Steve wasn’t all that bitter about the Dodgers anymore, but it was still weird to watch the Yankees and root for them. Other days, Tony insisted they both sit in sweatpants with all the junk food they could find while Tony introduced him to a “cultural masterpiece” and Steve had to pretend he hadn’t already seen it. It was still different to watch something with Tony. To spend his time watching Tony’s expressions and to catch the lines he mouthed along to.

 

“You’re surprisingly quick on your feet with the tech for an old guy,” Tony said one afternoon, eyebrow raised after Steve used a hologram interface without much trouble.

 

Steve froze. Lies had always been the problem. Even those excused by “for your own good” -- a cheap way to pass the guilt. It was him making the same mistakes again.

 

It had been weeks since he’d arrived and lodged himself into Tony’s life and--

 

“About that--”

 

It had been easier to tell Peggy when the chance of everything going wrong hadn’t been as high. But once he started, it all spilled out. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted and needed Tony to know the full truth.

 

Afterwards, there was silence.

 

“I died, so you came to the past and created an alternate reality just to see me,” Tony said eventually.

 

If he was going to say it all, then it all needed to come out. Especially the reason he was there to begin with.

 

“I love you.” He paused, letting the words linger between them.

 

Tony’s eyes were shining. His mouth was slack with surprise. He was completely still.  

 

“I’m in love with you,” Steve finished.

 

“You really -- you mean that…”

 

The moment dragged on forever.

 

“I--” Tony began.

 

“You don’t have to say anything. This is -- this was stupid and I can still go back. I can still just--”

 

Pepper was still around. She and Tony were together -- sort of. It was complicated, apparently. Steve had seen the signs, the way that Tony moved sometimes and how he never slept the whole night through without finding himself in the lab. Steve had taken to making him herbal teas and Tony had complained the whole way through drinking the first one until he admitted after the third one that they weren’t all bad -- they were even soothing . Steve had known all along that he liked them and it felt a little bit like cheating.

 

“I--” Tony said again and then he gulped and shook his head as he came back to himself and he stared at Steve like he’d never seen him before.

 

After that, Steve gave him his space.

 

“There are two of you,” Tony said a few days later, entering the kitchen. “Two Steve’s. That -- that shouldn’t be possible. It could be disastrous.”

 

“So you want me to go. If you want me to go, I’ll go.”

 

Tony shook his head. He walked around the table separating them, his hands landed on Steve’s biceps and his eyes bore into his, searching for something. Whatever it was, he found it because a few seconds later he shook his head. “No.”

 

“Then, what--”

 

“You -- the you from now. That Steve...he yearns for the past. For Peggy. For what could have been. You don’t.”

 

Steve laughed. “You’re my past. My present. My future.”

 

“Not for him,” Tony said.

 

Steve shook his head. “Not yet.”

 

The moment dragged out and Steve didn’t know what was happening or what Tony was getting at.

 

“I’m...I could love you,” Tony said eventually. He shook his head, laughed a little. “So easily.” He ducked his head, suddenly bashful.

 

Steve had never seen Tony like that. But this Tony was gentler and softer and his lips were quirked up when he looked at Steve again.

 

His second kiss with Tony felt inevitable. It was soft. Cautious and curious -- Tony’s exploration into what if. Steve didn’t even know who leaned in first or how his hands ended up in Tony’s hair. Just that it happened.

 

Tony didn’t taste like cherries. He tasted like herbal tea and a hint of chocolate. His goatee didn’t scratch. His lips were just a bit chapped, but they fit perfectly on Steve’s and the whole world -- all of reality and time itself could have collapsed and Steve would have stayed in that moment. Forever.

 

Tony was the one that called Steve -- that time’s Steve -- and asked him to meet.

 

Stubborn and self-righteous, that Steve came anyway. If out of sheer curiosity or because he felt bound to after the events of New York. It didn’t matter.

  
Steve stayed out of the way, out of sight until Tony finished telling him. Seeing himself -- this younger version that was so jaded and upset and who just didn’t understand or get that being angry at the world and himself for what happened to him wasn’t going to fix anything -- was more difficult than he’d expected.

 

“Hey, Steve, seeing him now, I don’t know how I didn’t catch on you weren’t really him,” Tony said eventually, his cue to show himself.

 

They weren’t all that different in how they looked, but there were noticeable differences once they were next to each other.

 

“So, you’re me,” this time’s Steve said.

 

“In a way. Tony explained what he could. We can send you back. Tell you a few things that might help you along the way. You can be with Peggy.”

 

That Steve’s eyes lit up. He felt hope.

 

Steve shouldn’t have been surprised that Tony was right. That Steve hadn’t been in the future for too long. His entire life -- everything he knew -- was still in the past. It didn’t take long to tell him about Bucky and Hydra infiltrating Shield. Other bigger details too and then that was that and they got him on his way.

 

“You told me to be happy,” Steve told Tony after it was all done. “To live my life and be happy. I think this -- us -- it isn’t what he meant. I don’t know if he ever knew how I felt, but--”

 

“I know,” Tony said.

 

Their fingers were intertwined. It was as it should be.

 

In another reality another Steve danced with Peggy.

 

In another, Steve delivered a shield. Tony watched from behind a tree. And after Sam and Bucky were gone, Tony walked to the bench.

 

“Regrets?” Tony asked.

 

“No. Nice to see them -- this version of them.”

 

Tony kissed his cheek, leaned his head into Steve’s shoulder and they looked out on the lake, lingering in his original reality, but ready to go back to the one that he’d made into his home.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. 
> 
> If you liked it, please like/reblog it on [tumblr](https://inawickedlittletown.tumblr.com/post/184522111217/together-always-one-shot)


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